It ain't about the money
by MintyThing
Summary: Lilly struggles with her beatboxing skills for the finals. The help comes from a person she would never expected to notice her. A/N: Lonald or Dilly fanfic, whatever you call them. I fell in love with this otp, so let me know if i should write more :) Enjoy!


Everything changed since Aubrey let stupid rules and the bossy attitude go. The Bellas were now in the hands of Beca, who put a lot of effort into mixing the perfect song for ICCA finals. Every girl did her best to hit the right notes. Even Fat Amy struggled few times through cardio workout just to last longer during the final performance. Aubrey relaxed a lot more, almost got a rid of her issue with puking under pressure and helped the Bellas a lot with creating the perfect choreography. Cynthia-Rose had a great voice for rap lyrics and Stacie brought seductive tones to the right places. Chloe´s problem with nodes turned out to be certain advantage in bass notes. Every single Bella seemed to find and claim their rightful place in the acapella. Except for Lilly.

When they were practicing in the empty pool where the riff-offs took place because of the great acoustic, she offered her skills as a beatboxer, on which she was working during the summer break. Remembering an abandoned parking lot, where she was trying to imitate some of the greatest US beatboxers or just tried to catch some skills from the street, she thought the Bellas should really use their own beatboxer. It could help them win. Lilly was pretty confident with her skills and practiced often on campus, much to her roommate´s complaining. But when Beca presented her few songs she was supposed to ´translate into beatbox leanguage´, young Asian girl was filled with disappointment.

It didn´t matter how many times she practiced and tried to hit the notes, her mouth just wouldn´t listen to the brain. She went to the empty pool every other night, and taking breaks for learning she almost beatboxet her lungs out. For example, the starting line "It ain´t about the money" kept coming out of her mouth in the wrong pitch or incorrect pace. Lilly was getting desperate. When the Bellas were practicing, she used to be the one who messed up. Choreography and everything worked out well, Stacie even learned an impressive split, but Lilly feared – what if her failure will cause loss of everything they worked so hard on?

Once after a practice, the girls were leaving when Beca noticed Lilly sitting sadly on one chair in the dark corner. Saying quick goodbye to others, she came to the quiet girl to cheer her up.  
"Lilly, is everything okay?" she asked as she kneeled to her side.  
"No it is not. I keep messing up." Whispered black-haired girl and sighed heavily. Beca had to pitch her eras to hear her "My voice always fails when I give the mouth the angle. I don´t know what to do." The new leader of the Bellas got lost in thoughts for a while. How can she help her friend? They really need her as a beatboxer and throwing her out is no option. After everything they gone through together, Bellas were now stronger than ever.

"What about we make some changes to fit your abilities better?" offered Beca and patiently waited for response. When Lilly was not happy – on the casual mood or upset – her voice still was almost inaudible.  
"No, I can´t let you do that. The mix is perfect, it is my fault we can´t get the _wow_ into it." Sucking in another breath to calm down her crazy stressed out heart, she continued "Maybe Danielle could beatbox instead of me, she is pretty good too and it may be not as much trouble for her to hit the right pace as it is for me."  
"Nonsense." Beca shook her head "You are perfect for it, Lilly. Just practice some more and I´m sure it will come to you."  
"There is not that much time left."  
"I know. Just promise me you will not lose faith. Try in once more this evening, and if even that effort will fail, we can still make a couple changes. Our acapella bitches will stand by you."  
"Alright. I will try. Thank you for being so nice to me. You are a great friend." Lilly smiled and blinked those huge eyes.  
"Thank you and of course you welcome." Beca smiled and got up to leave.  
"I will glue a strand of your hair to my diary"  
"What…?"

As Beca advised and Lilly promised, she packed her little colorful backpack with small gummy bear snack, three bottles of water and went to the empty pool. Taking deep breaths, closing eyes and standing right in the middle she balled up her wrists and beatboxed.  
"It aain´t about the moneyyy…" too long, she thought. She said those words in normal pace, but the version in the mix is supposed to be fast, short and in different height.

"It ain´t aabout the moneyy…" Wrong. Again. And then, again. She was getting so fed up with failed efforts she actually started talking, or better, whispering to herself the weird things going through her mind. But she kept beatboxing melodies she was pretty good at.  
"I better hang myself with the Bella scarf on this pool ladder."  
"If you do, I will run over there and save ya." She heard familiar, playful voice behind her. Slowly and carefully she turned around, prepared to use karate techniques for her defense.

On the edge of pool stood Donald. The member of Treblemakers, the awesome beatboxer, rapper and singer. The boy she had a little crush on but would never admit it.  
"The night is dark and full of terrors." She whispered first thing that came to her mind, the two of them being surrounded by darkness of campus night.  
"Nice Game of Thrones Mellisandre quote, but I hope there is no shadow killer baby in your lady parts." Her eyes almost balled out.  
"You can hear me?" she wondered. Instead of the answer, he jumped off the edge of pool inside, almost next to her, and drew out something from his pocket. A lighter.  
"Of course I do. And let me tell ya a secret. I set fires to feel joy too."

Her quote from the Treblemakers bus. She sat next to him and was very pleased he heard her little nonsense others didn´t ever bothered listening to. He heard her and he remembered her. Still, talking with him made her really nervous and she had a lot of practice to do. She needs to get a rid of him.  
"But nothing is burning." She liked fires, but not the safe and controlled ones.  
"But I feel joy I from seeing your face clearly right now." She opened her mouth a little from the surprise and looked up to him. He was higher that she is. He had a playful smile o his face and the fire of the lighter reflected slightly in his big nerdy glasses. She just stood here in awe.

"Please don´t flirt with me right now. I have to focus on my beatboxing skills. If this is some kind of sabotage, you choose a wrong person. I am not as stupid as Kori was."  
"What are you talking about?" he laughed a little and instead of a lighter he now kept them in ability of seeing each other with a small pocket torch in star-like shape.  
"You are trying to treblebone me, aren´t you?" she looked at him, eyes full of doubt. No boy ever cared about her, hit on her or even _heard_ her. She had every right to be suspicious. But, he just chuckled again.

"Slow down, baby, we got all day." Her cheeks were filled with red. Why was he still making her so uncomfortable? "That is not why I am here. Yet. I heard you have some troubles with beatboxing and I think I can help ya with that." The smile on his face was so _real_. No pity, no mocking, no falsity. Lilly relaxed and tugged nervously on her Bella scarf around her wrist.  
"Why would you do that? If I fail, Bellas lose and Trebles win."

"Believe me, I just can´t help myself and help a damsel in distress. Especially when she has such pretty eyes and stunning voice. Beatboxing princess should be every boy´s dream. You are very talented Lilly. The Bellas deserve to win the finals this year – with your help." She had no idea why he said all of these things. She never heard him speak so long and so serious. Her mouth had no choice but curl into a cute smile. Blinking few times behind the dark lashes, he returned her the smile.

That is when they begin to talk more with each other. Donald kept his word and as the finals came up, Lilly was beatboxing a hundred times better then she used to. Of course she had to keep their meetings in the pool secret in front of other Bellas, especially Aubrey, because even the blonde ex-leader had a crush on one of the Trebles, she wanted to keep an oath. She still wanted them to focus and do their best. So Lilly was silent, but every day her gratefulness towards Donald kept rising. They became really good friends and discovered they had a lot in common. Both had a geeky obsession with space movies, HBO series and comic books. And then, the ICCA finals finally came.

Lilly was never so proud of herself. The Bellas did it! They rocked the stage, entertained crowd, destroyed all myths and reached an acapella hand towards the winning. Beca turned her solo into a love song for Jesse and after the performance, she ran straight towards was surprisingly not complaining – she herself blinked few times seductively towards Unicycle. The oath seemed really stupid now.

As Lilly went off the stage almost behind Beca, Donald came straight to her. She smiled at him happily, laughing and breathing heavily from her all her beatboxing.  
"You were awesome Lilly." He took her hand and gave it a light squeeze, his eyes seemed to wander around others furiously. Then they noticed it.

Beca was hugging Jesse around the neck and kissing him as there was no tomorrow. Donald immediately looked at Lilly, both of them blushing.  
"Ah, what the hell!" Lilly wanted to ask what was going on, but she got no chance. His strong arms pulled her close, one locked around her waist and the other hand cupped her cheek and lifted her face to his level. He had to bend a little, but finally his hungry lips captured hers in a heated kiss. This was unexpected but for a second, she finally forgot about the world around her – ignored the talking, shocked breaths and happy laughing. There she was, only her and him. That's all that mattered. Finally, she found the lost confidence and listened carefully to her body. Now, her heart was now doing its own new beat. And she was loving it.


End file.
